


Stolen

by disalae



Series: Athri Lavellan [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Cracking out of corsets, F/M, Fluff, Halamshiral, Kink Meme, Prompt Fill, Sexual Tension, Silly, Undressing, Vaguely AU, being cute, dumb elves, mooshy fluffs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-17
Updated: 2015-02-17
Packaged: 2018-03-13 09:16:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3376091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disalae/pseuds/disalae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lavellan has some problems with Orlesian fashion. And Orlesians. And Orlais. All of it, really.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stolen

**Author's Note:**

> Original kink meme post & prompt here:http://dragonage-kink.livejournal.com/12449.html?thread=48683681#t48683681
> 
> I guess this is slightly AU -- I personally don't think even Josephine could convince (at least my) Lavellan to wear such an impractical outfit when she was supposed to be chasing down an assassin at the Winter Palace, so I set this during a hypothetical second visit, where no fighting would be required. Maybe the next day? I dunno don't worry about it. *waves hand* 
> 
> Enjoy!

The guest chalets outside of the grounds of the Winter Palace -- nestled in the further depths of Halamshiral but still close enough to the palace to be of ease to the nobility -- hold as much comfort and elegance as one might expect, Lavellan finds. That is to say: they are as if petite versions of the palace, small children birthed into pearls and gold and filigree; a stark, uncomfortable contrast -- especially to her eyes -- with the earth and trees surrounding them. Like jewels covering flowers below; like burls, cut and polished into something beautiful, and shiny, and dead.  
  
Harsh, maybe; she’ll admit such thoughts to be biased. After all, one can only be called  _knife ear_  and  _rabbit_ by Orlesian tongues for so long, while standing on ground stolen from  _her_  people no less, before one feels a bit like they  _are_  the joke, rather than in on it.  
  
...Or maybe it is something else altogether giving her such a sour, sad face.  
  
“It was not noticed by the majority of the court,” Josephine had quietly explained to her in the coach on the way back to the Inquisition’s lodging. And although her tone had been even, subdued, and even sympathetic, it was not without a hint of disappointment -- the way one might be if their cake does not come out quite as good as they imagined. It isn’t the cake’s fault, of course, but after you have sent the cake on dancing lessons and etiquette lessons, have coached the cake on the Game, have dressed the cake in the finest clothing befitting of her station (even if the cake had  _insisted_  otherwise), well…  
  
When Lavellan had come back out of her thoughts, she had been met with Josephine’s practiced smile, and a pat on her knee. “We won’t tell anyone.”  
  
Lavellan had snorted; as if that meant anything; Varric had been in full view of the whole spectacle! The entire Inquisition would know by morning, surely.  
  
A perfect end to such an evening.  
  
The moment the coach had stopped she had fled from it, as if under seige. Which, if she were to be dramatically honest, she’d felt as if she was -- the dress she wore, while both beautiful  _and_  somewhat culturally sensitive (Josephine had, by request, carefully negotiated with the finest dress makers in Val Royeux to include a number of subtly elven characteristics to the gown, while still keeping with the current fashions), coupled with Court itself, was more physically taxing to bear than battle. At least in battle she was in control, calm, self-assured and confident; in battle she could flee, she could  _breathe_  -- in this she could do neither, all of which had been evident...earlier.  
  
She had sped her steps, then, as her cheeks flushed red once more.   
  
But now, thank the Creators, she finds herself finally at her quarters; to her delight they are tucked back and down a different hall than that of the rest of her companions’, and are, blissfully, private. Though the latter point seems to be in question once she actually opens the door -- the room is dark, yes, but not entirely so. No, in the corner upon a desk is lit a small oil lamp casting ruddy, dark light across the walls. Next to it, reflecting sharply even in the dull light, is the metal of a mask, and -- just noticed -- the jacket of a formal servant’s attire, hung on the back of the chair.  
  
A sigh precedes what seems like an announcement to no one. “You left me.”

From the other side of the room a chuckle emerges and, soon after, a form, lithe and elven and now comfortably back in more familiar dress. “I did not,” Solas counters, matter-of-fact. He walks towards her though does not yet touch her, not yet. Gives her space, keeping a polite distance as he studies her ( _tired, suffocated, now... brightening?_ ) expression. “I was relieved.”  
  
She is listening, even as she pulls and tugs and manages to, inelegantly, shed the outer layers of her dress like the peelings of an orange. “Relieved?”  
  
“Relieved,” he repeats, with a smirk, and then quickly offers to explain before her gaze turns even more harsh. “From my duties, as it were; the Court felt that the evening no longer required my presence, nor the presence of the majority of the staff. It seems the Inquisition did not wish to arouse suspicion by insisting otherwise.”  
  
Lavellan looks a mix of confused, hurt, and impatient. Mostly impatient. “Okay,” she answers, taking in a deep breath. It doesn’t work. “It’s okay.” A pause; her gaze falls as if to think, before it snaps back up, expression pleading. She picks at the lacing of her corset, now exposed. “Can you help me?”  
  
“Of course,” he answers, and without missing a beat he moves closer, placing his hands upon her tightly bound waist. “Turn around.”  
  
It’s a request that she does without question, although he also guides her, and she places one hand against the wall to steady herself as Solas begins to unlace her. Deftly. Quite deftly, she thinks, and glances over her shoulder in an attempt to watch. “Have you done this before?” she asks, and if it sounds like disbelief in her voice, it’s because that’s exactly what it is. Apologetically, she adds, “Just doesn’t seem like an...  _apostate_  kind of skill, is all.”  
  
He chuckles, and continues his work. “And what makes you think I have not gone under disguise as a manservant before?”  
  
She raises an eyebrow. “ _Have_  you?”  
  
Another chuckle. Another evasion. “If you are asking whether or not I have undone a corset for a woman before,” he begins, and no, that isn’t what she was asking, but that’s the answer she’s getting, she guesses, “then the answer is yes. As for the circumstance, I am certain you can infer that on your own.”  
  
Can she? She isn’t sure. But she forgets her original question when he gives a solid yank and releases her ribcage just enough for her to get a deeper breath, and it would have been divine if not for the protest her body gives, aching and sore. Payback, she thinks, for what she has done to it.   
  
Lavellan is quiet for a moment, thinking, before she says quietly, “...Sorry about that.”  
  
He stills for only a breath, before resuming. “For what?”  
  
“For you having to be my  _manservant_  whenever we are in Orlais,” she hisses, the offending word more spat than said. She understands why they do it, logically, but emotionally it still grates at her. Not just because of who he is to  _her_ , but for who he is as a whole. He is not only a set of pointy ears; none of them are, despite what Orlais may think. “It’s insulting. To you. To all of us.”  
  
One hand stops its work, and touches her arm gently. “I assure you, I have suffered no egregious insult,” he reassures, hand dropping to resume. Another tug, another relieved sigh from her. “You were at the Conclave as a spy; surely you can see the value in being almost invisible in a place such as the Winter Palace.”  
  
She grunts, a conceding sound; she still doesn’t like it, but can see his point. “I guess.”

“You guess,” he echoes quietly, a smile in his voice, and pulls the final laces loose; the corset cracks off of her like an eggshell into his hands, leaving her to stand with only a gauzy chemise upon her frame. Her sigh of relief is audible, but he does not allow her enough time to say anything. Drops the corset on the floor to pair with the rest of her dress and spins her back to face him, studying her expression. Asks a question he already knows the answer to. “Is that all that troubles you?”  
  
“No,” she answers on instinct, because she is usually of a mind that skirting around problems is pointless. But all the same,  _this_  time she feels her blush creep, and reconsiders that stance when the problem is so...embarrassing. She attempts evasion as well, though she is clearly less practiced in the art than he. “Yes. I only wish you had been there, is all.”  
  
He narrows his eyes. He doesn’t believe her. “Did something happen?”  
  
“No,” she answers again, too quickly. Relents. “Maybe.”  
  
A heavy pause hangs between them, and his eyebrows raise expectantly. “Are you going to  _tell_  me then, _vhenan_ , or do you wish me to guess?” he asks, and although his tone is light, it is not without concern stitched into it. She appreciates it, however unneeded. Also appreciates when he adds, “Or if you do not wish to discuss it--”  
  
“No, I…” she cuts him off, chewing on her lip and trying to think of the least embarrassing way to retell the tale; maybe she should get Varric. “...fainted?”  
  
Concern is momentarily replaced by subtle amusement. “It sounds as if you are asking me for confirmation. Are you unsure?”  
  
She makes an ugly sound, somewhere between a sigh and a scoff. “No. It's -- ah, yes. I fainted. Because of  _that_...” her voice turns seething, and her gaze falls to the corset cast aside on the floor. She scratches like a petulant cat at where it once wrapped around her. “…blighted thing. And everything. And that.”  
  
It’s not the whole story, no -- the whole story involves Josie sneaking up to her,  _tut tutting_  about how her corset was far too loose for someone who she assured was in no danger of physical battle, tightening it as if she had a grudge against Lavellan; involves far too many glasses of wine to make things bearable, and a particularly insistent noble with a mask like a hawk; involves him cornering her off when her companions were engrossed in their own quiet conversations, insisting they speak and speak and  _speak_ ; involves this man towering over her, leaning over her, asking how it felt to be a  _rabbit_  in such a high position; asking if, before she came to this lofty position, she had ever been in  _lower_ ones, tone suggesting everything she knew it would ( _shem men are all the same_ ); involves her politely bottling her rage and excusing herself to find air; involves her unable to find said air before the events of the night -- the weariness and suffocating pressure of it -- wrapped around her and sent black spots into her vision and  _why can’t she breathe why did Josie do this to her_  and then-- nothing at all.   
  
Except then, suddenly, not nothing. Everything. Involves her waking in a fright, unsure of her surroundings, lashing out and nearly slicing her fingernails across Cullen’s face. Realization. Cheeks blushing. Varric slapping her on the back and saying  _Shit, Inquisitor, and I thought this night was gonna be boring_.  
  
That about covers it, she guesses.   
  
...Only, she doesn’t realize she’s rambled the majority of that out loud ( _far too many glasses of wine_ ) until Solas tips her chin with his finger and brings her gaze to meet his, and she feels her jaw ache from overuse.   
  
Too much talking, she thinks. This whole night.

“ _Vhenan_ ,” he answers, searching her expression. Working her out like a puzzle, as if trying to figure out what she wants to hear. She’s never certain whether she appreciates or is insulted by that. Why can’t he just say what he feels? There's no one else here. “I...am sorry, then. That I was not there.”  
  
She shakes her head, the movement a dismissal of his touch. He drops his hand, and her eyes follow it as it falls. Her hand, too; she reaches out, and lets her fingers ghost against his before grabbing hold. Shrugs. “It’s probably better that you weren’t.”  
  
Her eyes go up to meet his, and he nods in understanding. Because  _love is sweet but love is weakness_ , she tells herself. Has always been told. Told  _him_ , late one night while they laid with limbs tangled, slick with sweat, the very same weakness falling from her lips over and over and over.  _And people will always play it against you, whenever they can_.  
  
And where  _worse_  to have such a thing played against her, than within those gilded palace walls?  
  
( _Not this. Let them call her knife ear, call her rabbit; let them look at her like meat to be served and force her to parrot kind words. They can have that, but Creators, let her have **this**  for herself._)  
  
Still, in the end she knows it is -- always is, whether at court or simply shying away from his touch when they are in view at Skyhold -- cowardly. Mutters lamely, as some form of appeasement, “It isn’t…it's not because I—“  
  
“I know,” he answers before she has time to finish, and she is pleased that he does. Has never been all that great with words anyway. Not about this.   
  
With a sigh she relaxes, rolling her shoulders and stretching. She feels as if she’s compressed, bent all the wrong ways, and she moves herself to realign. Solas watches her with amusement — or interest, or both, perhaps — stepping back to give her room to do as she likes. And she does, not paying him mind as her eyes slide shut, but when they reopen to notice his gaze she smirks, giving him a once over right back.   
  
She then grunts as she looks down at herself. “I have to get out of this,” she declares, and makes it so; kicks off her shoes and pushes the shoulders of her chemise down until her arms are freed and it pools at the top of her bodice ( _why does this need to be tied as well_ , she can’t help but think). Without a word Solas moves once more behind her, to loosen the ties so as to allow this final piece to spill down to the floor, leaving her in nothing but her smallclothes (and even  _they_  are fancy; picked by Josephine, very very Orlesian).  
  
She likes being like this -- thinks nothing of it. After all, her clan, living as they did, hardly had room for privacy, and even moreso hardly had reason to think being scantily clad — or even nude — were reasons to think anything more than what it was: necessity, natural, the way it sometimes had to be. So when her dress falls and she is left in her skivvies she has no reason to shy; thinks it funny (and perhaps, secretly, a bit darling) that so many shem women do so, thinking their bodies something so personal, so pure, something to be  _withheld_ , even from a lover. Even moving past such carnal things, the overall mindset boggles her because, well, she has never really belonged to  _only_  herself, after all. Not really. That isn’t how her clan worked: all she had was open to be given -- not in  _this_  specific manner, of course, but all else -- and she had always been happy to do so. And she has always been happy to extend philosophy this towards the Inquisition, to this new clan, this new cause -- except now she finds it a mindset that, lately, is less  _appreciated_  and more  _taken advantage of_.  
  
Culture shock, she supposes.

Still, there is reason for  _him_  think this — her, scant, on display — is more than it is, now, is there not?  _Precedent_  for it, after all, and she can feel his eyes linger because of it. Feels the warmth of him as he moves to press his chest against her back, soft fabric against bare skin, his hands on her shoulders. Not taken advantage of, for this first time tonight.  _Appeciated_.  
  
She sighs and turns to face him, studying. Tilts her head and smiles. “Did the dress look nice on me, at least?” she asks, tone low but playful. Perhaps his answer would make  _some_  of this nightmare of a night worthwhile.  
  
It does. “You looked like a shemlen woman,” he prefaces, and maybe to anyone else it would seem strange, insulting even, but she knows why he says it, and appreciates it, “but yes.”  
  
“Josephine will be delighted hear.”  
  
“Though I prefer you out of it,” he continues almost without pause, voice calm and neutral as if talking about the weather, but the urgency of it, the quickness of his addendum, is telling. As are his hands, sat lazily upon the curve of her waist, thumbs brushing against the soft skin he finds there. There is hunger in the way he looks upon her, and for the first time this evening? She is looking forward to being devoured.  
  
In response, then, she cuts off any more he may have to say with a press of her lips against his, gentle. Gooseflesh ripples under his touch, and it is weakness — sweet, honeyed weakness, instead of Orlesian dress — that now leaves her without breath.   
  
Preferable, that.  
  
She separates just enough to chuckle, throaty and low, and backs her way slowly towards the bed, gaze beckoning. “As do I.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading <33
> 
> The prompt itself seemed fluffy, so all fluff, no smuts. Though if you're all super nice and leave me comments requesting otherwise, I'm sure I can be persuaded *WINK NUDGE*.


End file.
